Horus
Horus, the stoic and cold Artificer of Avalon and NewTown. He works constantly to improve and make affordable and producible the technologies he comes across, builds, and sometimes steals. He is defensive of his projects and trusts no one. Backstory Horus was born a prodigy. Avalonian commoners are required to take tests of their intelligence when they turn two years old, and Horus attained the ninth highest score on record when he participated. He studied artificery in the coming years and worked tirelessly to gain funds to finance his projects. His goal was to make artificery available to the middle class of Avalon. He gained an intense rivalry with another, noble bird his age named Icarus Zephyria, or Ikki for short. Ikki was a prodigy as well, scoring the fourth highest score on record when he was evaluated. Ikki and Horus worked together on several projects early on in their careers, but they grew into rivals as they disagreed heavily over effectiveness versus affordability in their designs. Eventually their rivalry turned sour when Ikki stopped working with Horus and began to work only in his own lab. Horus struggled to gain the proper funding for his projects and his research began to fall behind Ikki's, and the gap began to widen quickly. To fix this, Horus took to stealing Ikki's research at first to supliment his own lack thereof. Even on a few occasions it was more effective to steal Ikki's designs themselves and modify them rather than working to reproduce research Ikki had already done. NewTown After Ikki began working on quicksilver on Pride's Peak, Horus needed funds for his research as stealing Ikki's was no longer an option. Horus took up woprk in NewTown, building guns for Dolan Rusco, head financier and unofficial mayor of NewTown. He continued to work on his own research, but his finds were still limited. He even killed two panther tabaxi who attempted to sabotage his work despite Dolan asking him to keep his defenses nonlethal. nonlethal defenses were clearly not enough as his research was being ransacked far too often. But it became clear to him that the gap was once again widening when Ikki created a fully automated quetzalcoatlus. Horus came to take a look at what Ikki was working on, and found a massive quicksilver canon in the making. Horus took the designs and took them to Avalon where he was granted funding to create the weapon. Shadows Over Flouna Horus was on Pride's peak the day the Githyanki showed up. Despite his rivalry with Ikki, he had no desire to see his friend and rival die, and he wanred Ikki to run, but Ikki refused. Horus saw from a distance the damage the quicksilver canon did the the enemy ship. It wasn't until he spoke with tabaxi survivors, looking for Ikki, that he learned his friend had been burned alive by the githyanki's dragon. At the mention of a dragon, Horus knew his own canon would need to be ready soon. Horus was on Avalon the day the Githyanki ship appeared and began to bombard the city. He defended as best he could, but the githyanki were too strong and only spared Avalon for a reason the aaracocra could only guess at. Horus reported that Ikki had attacked the ship that was above them and it was likely seeking retribution. Much to Horus' dismay, a wounded but still living Ikki arrived to fight in the battle. Ikki's attempt to board the enemy ship failed, but it gave Horus time to get the factories of the city to create a smog cloud to move the enemy ship into a position where he could blast it with his own canon. Horus told Ikki to leave, but Ikki refused. Ikki got in a fight with his father over their family issues and the aristocrats, standing in the half burned city called of Ikki to pay for bringing the enemy to their door. Horus tried to get them to Exile Ikki instead, but Ikki went berzerk and attacked him, shooting him through the chest with a spark rifle, nearly killing him, and accidentally setting himself on fire. Horus could do nothing to help his featherless friend as he fell over the edge of the city in flames. Since then Since then Horus has been given all the funding he needed and has made leaps and bounds in technological research with the money Ikki would have one had access to. He even struck a deal with Dolan to get mana canons from the destroyed githyanki ship so he could learn to reproduce them. The death of his friend has taught Horus caution and to keep his words chosen carefully among the elite. The only part of Ikki that was ever found was his beak, which Horus had knocked off during their brief scuffle. Horus mounted it on his thunder canon as a reminder of what he's lost to get there he is. Abilities Trivia * Horus was created as a rival for Ikki but given no personality or details beyond this until the Shadows Over Flouna Arc. * Horus was named after the Egyptian god of the same name to match a god name theme of his rival Ikki. * Horus is a Utilitarian. Category:NPC Category:New Town NPCs